


Newfoundland

by hafren



Series: Heartlands [3]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:27:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third in the trilogy "Heartlands". There are three people in this marriage...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Newfoundland

**Author's Note:**

> License my roving hands and let them go  
> Before, behind, between, above, below.  
> O my America, my new-found-land.
> 
> \- John Donne: "On Going to Bed"

There's one thing that would make life perfect: if I only had such-and-such.... And sometimes you get it. Then you want something else.

Vila had spent years trying to lay hands on things guaranteed to sort his life out. Money and valuables, at first. Then on the _Liberator_, surrounded by them, he'd craved safety. Not to be hunted, not to have a price on his head, not to be led into danger by people he couldn't leave, since the addle-headed fanatics were also his only protection. In his last terrible months on _Scorpio_, he would have traded any amount of money for safety.

And now he was on a non-Federation planet that had always fought for its freedom and was well able to, given the amount of pylene-50 antidote it produced and the rebels drifting to it. Eventually, no doubt, it would attract the Federation's notice, but for now they were concentrating on easier targets, for they'd failed here in their strongest days, as Vila well knew. For now, he was safe. _So I'm happy. Of course. Goes without saying_.

He mooched up, for the third time that day, to the gallery overlooking the space-port, where nothing was due yet, and looked out anyway, at nothing.

"Hey." He knew the voice without turning; it was Vasko, a young chemist from the lab block downstairs. "He'll be back soon enough. You're not worried, are you?"

"Suppose not."

"He'll be fine. It's a straightforward embassy, and there's enough people with him."

"Not me, though."

"Come on, you know why. He won't ever take you off-planet if he can help it, or anywhere there might be danger. He must care a lot about you." The voice was tinged with envy; not, Vila thought, of himself or Avon but of what Vasko thought they had. He had felt it in Tortuga, about Reis and Rafi. _But Reis took Rafi into danger with him_.

"What are you doing up here anyway?" he asked.

"Looking for you. I've made up your new supply of dream suppressant."

"Thanks."

"No problem; it's more fun than churning out antidote… You won't use it on him too often, will you? It isn't good for him, especially when he doesn't know he's taking it."

"One night in three, I swear, just like you told me. You don't know what it's like when he wakes screaming. When he can't stop shaking for hours and won't close his eyes in case it starts again… I just want him to get some rest."

"Natural means would be better. Distract him; make love to him more. Talking of love life, there's something I want to tell you about." Vasko's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Come down to the garden."

_Oh yes, my love life… That's when the man I love more than all the world reaches out for me in bed, without a word, eyes tight shut, and holds me as if he'll never let go. Kisses me so deeply I can't breathe. And then he'll vanish into the dark of the bed and I feel his hands run along me like flame and his mouth takes me in, and that tongue… And I reach for him, if he lets me; sometimes he won't but now and then he lets me give him what he gives me. And it's fine, as long as I don't say a word. As long as I don't joke or tease or, God forbid, whisper "I love you" in the dark… And afterwards he opens his eyes at last and lies staring at the ceiling. And I want to ask why he's so sad, but he can't tell me and I know the sound of my voice hurts him. How can it be so lonely in a bed?_

"The garden" was an internal oasis of greenery and fountains – this planet's climate had never suited outdoors. Its best feature, to Vila, was the sub-tropical temperature. The worst was the pictures. Grainy stills from security cameras or images from computers. Mostly of Blake and Avon, even some of himself. Being a hero, on a planet where he distinctly recalled having done nothing heroic, was not the buzz he'd thought it would be.

When Reis had first suggested taking them to Albian, Avon had gone white and said he'd need to think about it. Vila couldn't see why, and said so as soon as they were alone.

"It's perfect, Avon. Hell, you saved their whole planet; they owe you."

"Blake saved it, by coming to help them. I'd have steered clear, myself."

"They don't know that."

"They know I killed him."

"No, they don't. They know the Federation says so. The same people who claimed Blake was a child-molester.… Look, Avon, the downside of telling lies all the time is that when once in a while you tell the truth, nobody believes it. Our word against theirs; who'll the Albians believe? Who'll they want to believe?"

He'd been right, of course. There was no problem with the Albians. The problem was being a legend, and knowing the truth. Living with it, keeping it to yourself. Every time Avon passed one of those pictures, he flinched. No wonder he still had nightmares. _You'll be having them now, without me. Why didn't you take me?_

Vasko offered him a drink; he hesitated and refused. He didn't drink much now.

The chemist grinned. "Can't you chew mint after… No?" He stretched out. "I've been playing. Taking time off from the revolution. You won't believe what I've invented."

"Try me."

"Only adultery in a bottle. You know when you're making love to someone, and fantasising someone else? Well, I can make the someone else happen. Honest, this stuff's hallucinogenic and it foregrounds your subconscious, alters all your perceptions so the fantasy's more solid than the reality."

"In your dreams, maybe."

"I was, and it worked. I've tried it and I promise, while it lasted I was not with that little bargirl from Kai's; I was with… never mind, but it was all I ever dreamed it'd be."

"What about afterwards?"

"Oh, I knew, when I came down from it, but I still have the memory. I know who I was with, but that isn't what the picture in my mind says. It's all as if it happened."

"It doesn't sound fair somehow." Vila was thinking of the sad-eyed little bargirl. "Wouldn't whoever you were with know?"

"Not if they take it too. I gave her some, but of course when I asked her later who she'd fantasised, she claimed it was me. I tried to explain it was a scientific trial and I really needed the truth, but she wouldn't budge. I need more trials."

"What if the one you're with really is your fantasy?"

"Interesting question. Either it'd make no odds, or it might heighten the experience. Difficult to find out, though. I mean, how often does that happen?"

"You're a cynic."

"I'm a genius, and I need more guinea-pigs. Go on, take this and try it out for me. Better therapy than dream suppressant. Two drops in a glass of something. No taste."

Vila shook his head, when above them a screen flickered into life, showing a spacecraft about to land. He jumped up and ran. He'd pocketed the bottle, by old habit.

When he got to the port, the embassy had disembarked. He scanned the group for the one he cared about, trying to see from a distance how he was. The President of Albian's deputy was waiting to meet them; Avon gave him a nod but went straight to Vila and embraced him. Affection tinged with pain surged in Vila, because Avon, who could be so careless of others' feelings, was punctilious about acknowledging their bond in public. _I just wish you weren't doing it out of a sense of duty_.

Close up, he could see the man was haggard and he made to speak, but Avon stopped him. "I have to go to the de-brief. I'll come up to the flat as soon as I can." He touched his lips lightly to Vila's forehead and headed off with the others.

The flat was high up in the complex. Vila curled up in a chair, looking out of the window. It overlooked a bleak Albian landscape whose only notable feature was a marble statue of Blake. It looked impossibly noble. Not that he wasn't, in some ways, but he was more human than that. The photograph on the wall was more like; it had that eager, wide-eyed, rumpled look Vila recalled. Maybe that was why it seemed to hurt Avon more than any of the others did. Vila would gladly have got rid of it, but Avon wouldn't let him.

He took the two drugs from his pocket, noting with relief that though they were alike, the adultery-in-a-bottle was labelled – the dream suppressant never was, in case Avon found it. _Wouldn't want to mix them up… he looks as if he'll need sleep tonight. Much good this other stuff would do anyway. It'd be more to the point if Vasko could brew up something to kill memories. I suppose, then, every time would be the first… maybe I could get him to take me again._ Longing ached in him at the thought. Avon had never taken him since their semi-enforced intimacy at Tortuga, presumably because he couldn't forget how it had hurt Vila. _And God knows, I've told him often enough it was worth every twinge_. Once, in fact, after some official function when they'd both had a drink or two, Vila had renewed the offer he'd made at Tortuga, to prove to Avon that it didn't have to hurt. And Avon had actually said yes. But it only took one look at his white, set face to know he was saying it for all the wrong reasons and it was Vila who'd backed off. "No, not while you're seeing it as some sort of atonement. I want to give you pleasure, not take revenge. Tell me when you really want me to do it, and I will."

He shook his head at the memory. _What a daft thing to say. Like he's ever going to take me up on it_. But the thought was enough to make his skin quiver like fibre-optic filaments. To possess that remoteness… to be inside him…

Hearing steps outside, he curbed the urge to rush over. "Door's open". He glanced round casually as Avon came in, and forgot his resolve. "Avon, you look awful. Have you slept at all?"

"Not much. Don't fret about it; I'll make it up." He smiled at Vila with genuine warmth. "I always sleep well, the nights I come back."

_That's because I always give you dream suppressant, the nights you come back_. But he returned the smile, glowing despite himself. "I could have helped, if you'd taken me. Why didn't you? It's been weeks…and there was no danger."

"We couldn't be sure of that. And where's the point? You're safe here."

"Don't want to be safe. I want to be with you. Take me next time."

Avon's face began to look as if an invisible blind were being drawn across it. "I can't be responsible for your death too. I just won't risk it."

"It's my risk, not yours."

"We transferred to the planet in shuttles," Avon said quietly. "How would you have felt about that?"

_Malodaar. Our conversations are full of words we don't say_. "I wouldn't have given it a second thought, since you ask."

Avon shook his head. "I don't understand how you can say that."

"Well," Vila said slowly, "I could say I don't think you were in your right mind at the time, which is true. But what's truer is that I don't care. You aren't who you were then, and nor am I. The man I am now loves the man you are now; that's all I care about."

Avon started unpacking a bag, avoiding his eyes. _Love. Another word we aren't meant to use. Careless of me_.

"Avon, next time please-" Avon spoke at the same time, as if by accident. "Later. Look, I brought you this." He handed Vila a small package wrapped in tissue paper.

_He sounds like someone trying to distract a child with a sweet_. But Vila was intrigued. He unwrapped the thing from its rustling layers. It was a rock crystal, the size of a fist. As translucent as jelly, palest pink with deeper veins of rose and a dusting of tiny white flecks, it was less like a mineral than some exotic sugared delicacy. He felt like licking it, to see if it tasted as sweet and melting as it looked.

"It's amazing."

"I thought you'd like it. It's quartz, nearly worked out, so it's quite valuable."

To Vila it was priceless, and for no reason to do with money. He cradled it, trying to accept that it hadn't been conned, stolen, extorted or rendered in payment. Someone had given it to him, freely, because they thought he'd like it. And as far as he recalled, that had never happened to him before. Even the Tortugans' bounty had been payment, the price of an opened lock and a chemical formula. Everything had a price. He touched his lips to it, and Avon smiled. "It does look edible." Vila didn't trust his voice to reply. Later, as he lay watching Avon sleep peacefully, his eyes strayed to the crystal by the bed, glowing faintly in the dark like a clouded moon. He took it into his dreams with him.

He woke in full daylight. Avon was still asleep but his eyelids were twitching; the drug was wearing off. He'd have to be woken soon, but it was a long time since Vila had been able to enjoy the sight of him like this. He looked hungrily at Avon's smooth, pale shoulder above the covers, the blue veins on his eyelids, the lips cut perfectly as gemstones, and his own went to them. The diamond-cut mouth was sweet and yielding if you caught it at the right moment. Vila felt it wake beneath him, warm to his tongue. The body beside his stirred and sought him, and he vibrated like a plucked guitar string. He slipped down the bed, down familiar curves and hollows, hearing soft moans and feeling hands clutch at him. The erect shaft nudged at his mouth as if it knew the way in, and he opened to it, letting it fill him, enticing it further, coaxing it with his tongue until it shuddered and gave him its bitter tribute.

He lay quiet while the trembling in his own body and Avon's subsided. Surely it'll be all right, this time? When he risked looking up, his heart plummeted. Avon was lying in the attitude he knew so well, eyes wide open and staring at nothing, his face a mask of monumental grief.

"I'm sorry," Vila said softly. "I thought you wanted it."

"I did. Couldn't you tell? You know it always makes me feel sad afterwards. It isn't your fault; don't worry about it." Avon drew him close and caressed him reassuringly. Vila sensed the effort in it, felt Avon longing to be alone with his thoughts. Wordlessly he got up, collected some clothes and went through to the living room.

He stared resentfully at the face in the picture. "You know, I really used to like you." The face gazed back, inquiring and friendly. "I suppose I still do. But I'd like you a lot better if you'd get the hell out of his head. He killed you once; you do it to him every day of his life, every time he passes one of your pictures or statues, every time there's any risk of him relaxing and enjoying himself for once. You're the past now; stay in it and let him forget you. Hasn't he suffered enough?"

"Don't, Vila." Avon was standing in the doorway, fully dressed, his eyes locked to the face in the picture. "None of this is his fault. He didn't screw my head up; I did."

"I just hate seeing you hurt so much."

"Hearing him spoken ill of doesn't make it hurt less, I can assure you." Avon still wasn't looking at him. Vila went cold all over.

"Avon, please don't be angry with me. I won't ever say anything like that again, I promise."

"I'm not angry. It's all right." He picked up a little palm-size computer from his desk and made for the door.

"Avon…" Vila's voice was close to desperate.

Avon turned back. "It's all right. I promise, I'm not angry with you." He hugged Vila gently, distantly, as a concerned friend might. "I need to work on some data I brought back. Come with me, if you like."

"I'll follow you. I've got some things to sort here."

When Avon had gone, Vila fetched the quartz crystal from the bedroom. He needed to think, and the feel of it in his hand helped somehow. He turned and stroked it for some time, running his finger along the sharp edges, laying the smooth, cool facets to his cheek. Then he picked up a communicator and keyed in a number.

"Vasko? That stuff you gave me; how long does it take to kick in?"

"Going to help me after all?" Vasko sounded amused. "I didn't think anyone could resist it. Only a matter of minutes. You drink it together, nice and intimate, and that's the last time you're together all night - in spirit, that is. Let me know how it goes."

"Will I be able to, if it alters perceptions like you say?"

"Well, I don't suppose you'll be able to write a scientific report based on dispassionate observation… But you should recall enough. I did. I'll ask you in the morning. Enjoy."

Vila went off to where he knew Avon would be, supervising his team of computer hackers, and watched from a distance, keeping out of sight. Avon was running this revolution his way not Blake's, undermining the Federation by economic and electronic means and it was working a lot better. _Not that you'd want me to say that. Might sound as if I was criticising him. That was only allowed when he was alive…._ He stroked the crystal in his pocket and wrenched his mind off the bitter track it was taking. _Everything has a price, but not this. Sometimes you give someone something, just to see his face light up_.

Though it was an effort, he stayed away from Avon all day. He spent a lot of time in the flat, getting its ambience right. When Avon came back, Vila had food ready for him, which wasn't usual; generally they just grazed on whatever was handy. Avon looked touched and Vila half-smiled shyly. He made himself stay subdued and hesitant, anxious to please, walking on eggshells as if still afraid of Avon's anger. By the time they'd finished eating, Avon was going out of his way to cajole a smile out of him. _Oh, I know what guilt does to you. And I need you to go along with this. But I'm not doing it for me this time, I swear._

It was growing dark; they were relaxing on the couch when Vila took the labelled bottle from his pocket. "Vasko wants us to help him test this."

"What is it?"

Vila told him. His brow creased. "I don't see any obvious benefit to the revolution."

"How about commercial? Vasko reckons it would make millions."

Avon nodded slowly. "Yes, he could be right, at that."

"Fancy testing it, then?"

Avon looked unsure. "I don't know. It seems vaguely… unmannerly, somehow."

"It'll be the same for both of us. Vasko says we won't be conscious of reality, only the fantasy. Come on, Avon. For the revolution?"

Avon smiled to see Vila's flippancy reassert itself. "How does it work, then?" He spoke casually, as if it were just something he would go along with, but Vila had not missed the kindling in his eyes. _You must have wanted this for years._

Vila poured a couple of drinks and added the drops to one. It was quite easy to switch bottles before he doctored the other drink. _Well, I won't be dreaming tonight._

He felt uneasy, but he had known for hours that he would do this, moral or not. _I have to know. I'll test it for you some time, Vasko, but you said yourself it might screw up my perceptions and I can't risk that. He won't let me into his head any other way, and I have to know._ He came back to the couch and handed Avon a glass. "It should work in a few minutes." His voice was husky.

Free of the drug as he was, he saw the exact moment when it took effect on Avon. The moment when the pupils of his dark eyes, fixed on Vila's face, expanded in a kind of sweet shock. His lips parted in a little gasp; his eyes stayed mesmerised, as if what he was looking at were the most wonderful sight in the world. Vila had to remind himself it wasn't him. He took Avon in his arms and pulled him back across his lap, looking down into a breathless, enraptured face that stopped his heart. He could have stayed like that forever, just to look into eyes shining with love, staying open, even through the longest kiss Vila had ever known.

Very slowly, he began to undress Avon. He took so long over undoing each shirt button that Avon started to help. Vila stopped him, and shook his head. "I'm in charge of this. Lie still." And Avon did as he was told. Vila had never seen him submissive and it excited him so much, his hands were shaking. Somehow he managed to undo the rest and slid the shirt, maddeningly slowly, down over Avon's shoulders, silk parting from silk, so charged with static it was giving them both slight shocks.

Avon, trembling with impatience, raised his hands to speed things up again. Vila caught his wrists and held them. Avon had twice his strength and could have broken the grip easily, but looking into his eyes, Vila realised he didn't know that. In Avon's mind, the grasp was too strong to break. _Dear God, this stuff is dynamite._ Vila kept hold. "No. We go as slow as I say. Do you understand?" Avon nodded. "If I let you go, will you behave?"

"Yes." It was the merest whisper. Vila smiled at him. "That's better." _Is that me talking?_ It was weird, knowing that in Avon's mind he was someone else, but oddly liberating. Though he knew he didn't need to act the part, that the drug would do it all for him, he enjoyed playing it anyway. He released the wrists and continued the leisurely removal of Avon's clothes, interspersed with kisses. The pace was killing him too, but this had to be perfect. All the same, when the body he loved finally lay naked before him, he only just managed not to fling himself on it. Turning his eyes away with an effort, he began taking off his own clothes.

"Please," Avon whispered. "Let me." Vila, who was also barely capable of speech, nodded and sat back. Avon slid off the couch and knelt before him. Vila would not, until then, have credited that someone could bring him so close to climax simply by removing his shoes and kissing them. As the hands undressed him, he could only keep control by constantly reminding himself that the submission in them, the love in the wide eyes, the reverence in the lips that were hardening his cock, were not, basically, anything to do with him.

He slid down to the rug where Avon knelt and began to kiss him again, more urgently now but still curbing his own impatience and Avon's. The rug was black sheepskin; gently he laid Avon down on it and admired the way his pale body shone against the darkness. Then he began, very systematically, to kiss, stroke and lick every inch of it, starting at the shoulders and working down, while Avon shivered and cried softly under his touch. When he got to the base of the spine he patted Avon lightly, said "Stay there," and reached up to the table, for the little flask he knew he'd left there. _Oh Blake, you'd be proud of me; I've seen military campaigns less well organised than this._

When his hands were saturated in aromatic oil he returned to Avon's spine, vertebra by vertebra, hearing the little sighs of contentment as he loosened and relaxed.

The first time he let a finger stray to the cleft of the buttocks, he felt the body under his hands tense. "It's all right," he soothed, "I know what I'm doing. Nothing's going to hurt. Trust me." But he backed off, gently massaging Avon's back and stomach, talking him calm. It was wonderful to be able to talk; to murmur loving, teasing words into Avon's hair and neck as he'd always longed to. He was doing that when his hand next stroked into the cleft, and Avon was so distracted by the beguiling whisper that he didn't tense, even when a finger wandered inside him.

Vila's heart was thudding. He felt like a man on a new shore. Not some legitimate explorer, licensed by his government to claim new territories and mine their treasures. More like a privateer under false colours, making a quick raid for loot. A second finger joined the first; they felt their way carefully into the unknown, familiarising themselves with its contours, seeking the landmark mound of the little gland they knew must be near. When they found it, Avon gasped and shuddered with shocked pleasure, and Vila knew nobody had ever done that to him before. Virgin land: uncharted, unclaimed. Until now. He was so hard it hurt, but he kept his iron control a little longer, opening the territory, easing the way, determined no pain would ever be part of this memory. Then, at last, he slid slowly inside, as adeptly as ever he had entered a door.

He could tell the little cries were not pain; Avon was twisting his head round, lips seeking his own. Vila held still for a moment, overwhelmed by the knowledge of where he was, then continued his explorations. Everything seemed new; every inch of skin seemed made again as he mapped it. Everything he touched surrendered to him. He closed his hand around Avon's cock, making it pulse in time with his own thrusts, slowly and gently at first, trying to make the moment last for ever, but it can't, it can't, make the most of it while you can, you've got to remember this always, oh God, oh Avon, ohhhh.

He was vaguely conscious, as he came, that Avon was calling out too, but both then and later, Vila was profoundly grateful that he'd been making too much noise himself to hear exactly what. He collapsed against his equally exhausted conquest, cradling Avon's shoulders in his arms, and said softly in his ear "You're mine now."

Avon turned in his arms, eyes shining, and whispered "I have always been yours."

_Oh yes. I was forgetting, just for the moment. Careless. Well, Blake, you never heard him say it – maybe you wouldn't have wanted to – but there it is. All yours._

He kissed Avon once more, freed himself gently from his arms and went off to have a shower. The one thing he hadn't thought to ask Vasko was how long the delusion took to wear off, and he didn't want to be there when it happened; didn't want to be looking at that face when surprised happiness turned to realisation and disappointment.

When he came back, Avon was asleep on the rug. He looked very peaceful. _Better therapy than dream suppressant… Vasko, even if they make you sign most of the profits over to the revolution, you'll still make millions._ He covered him with a blanket and went to bed.

When he woke next morning, he couldn't at first think where the musical sound was coming from. Then he realised it was Avon in the living room, humming a tune to himself. He got dressed and went through. "You sound in a good mood."

Avon smiled and kissed him. "It's a beautiful day."

Vila glanced out of the window. Albian was as bleak as ever, so presumably Avon hadn't been referring to the weather. "Shall I tell Vasko and the lads to forget antidote and churn out the new stuff, then?"

"Perhaps not… but it is quite remarkable. Didn't you think so?"

"Oh, yes."

"So who were you with, then?"

The question took Vila off guard. He answered, without thinking, "You".

He would have given a lot, the next second, for the courage to confess the truth and erase the pain and self-loathing from the dark eyes opposite. _I palmed the damn thing; never took it. I knew what was going on the whole time. I was in control, while you were opening up to me, showing me your heart._ It would ease his conscience, but he knew he couldn't say it. If it were only Avon's anger he risked, he would suffer it, but it might be the loss of him. _And I can't face that. I just can't._

He took Avon's hands. "Avon, I always knew who you'd be with. I wanted to make you happy. I can live with what I've got. I don't mind who you see with your eyes shut." He knew as he spoke how unutterably magnanimous he sounded, how every word bound Avon in another rope of obligation. But it was too late for truth. Whatever they had was based on guilt, shared nightmares and a hell of a lot of lies. _But it's real, all the same. I'm not the one you see with your eyes shut, but I'm the one you bring quartz crystals home to. And I lie to you and con you into bed, but I love you so much, I'd rather go into danger with you than stay home safe. So much, if I could bring him back and give you to him, I might do it._

Avon got up and went over to the window, looking out, away from him, at the statue in the empty, windswept landscape. "I'd do anything in the world to make you feel better," Vila said, meaning almost every word. He went over and took Avon's shoulders, feeling the tension in them and wishing he could read his mind as clearly. "Avon. Please. Let me in."

Avon turned back towards him, his eyes bright with tears. He didn't try to hide them but lifted a hand, as if to brush them away. Vila caught it gently and drew it back down. "Close your eyes," he said, and Avon obeyed.

Vila kissed salt from the long, damp lashes, hardly daring to breathe in case the moment broke. This, he knew, was intimacy beyond anything they had ever shared; Avon's surrender of his body didn't begin to compare with it. All the times Avon had woken from nightmares and lain shaking in his arms, Vila had never seen this. He savoured the briny taste as if it were some rare new mineral he'd discovered. Not as a freebooter this time, not raiding for plunder, this was one country he'd been invited into. _Never this, Blake. He never gave you this._

Avon's eyes opened; looked full into Vila's. "Yes," Vila said regretfully, "it's still me, I'm afraid."

"I know," Avon whispered, and buried his head on Vila's shoulder.

A complication of feelings surged against Vila's ribs to the point of pain. _You're hurting for him, mostly, but you brought it to me. Not out of love, no. Because you need me, because we're neither of us whole or well, because we're alike. Partners in crime. What the hell's love anyway_. He rested his lips on Avon's hair, stroked his back. "It's all right," he murmured, "it'll be all right. I'll make it all right." _And if I did, if I could make you whole again, would you need me any more?_ The ache in his heart took his breath for a second, and he tightened his hold until the man in his arms, too, gasped softly with pain.


End file.
